We think we are exceptional. And it is true.
We are exceptional—a part of the 1,700 in our class selected from an applicant pool of around 30,000 bright young minds to attend this institution of higher learning, yet perhaps not in the way we might think. We are exceptional because of our privilege. When the biggest thing I have to worry about is whether I will be employed at this company or another one, or which summer internship I should do, I have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
There are, of course, many members of the Duke community that face immense challenges in their daily lives due to their race, class, sexual orientation or gender identity, to name a few. Systemic and structural inequality is not fiction, and white privilege does in fact exist in this country unless you ask Bill O’Reilly. I am the beneficiary of a variety of privilege as a white, straight, male student in America. Even amidst these realities, we all share a simple privilege, that of being a Duke student.
We like to consider ourselves self-made. After all, not all of our friends and peers in high school ended up at prestigious universities nor will they be spending their summer on the other side of the world getting their picture taken next to a well they built with their bare hands.
We all had something that distinguished us from our classmates and set us on the path to success in this world. Whether it was a caring parent, mentor or teacher that made a difference in our trajectory or the inherent privilege of a white, middle-class upbringing in the United States, someone or something affected our journey to Duke. There are countless individuals who, because of where they were born and the structural barriers of our society and world, do not have the privilege to dream of the futures we envision.
Sometimes this perspective is lost in the shuffle of internship applications and endless papers.
In an opinion piece from November 2013, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof addressed “a profound lack of empathy” that many in America exhibit on a daily basis. Increasingly political discourse in this country on socio-economic status has become a dichotomy between the lazy, undeserving poor and the hard-working, virtuous elite perpetuating a social order fomented in the history of race in America. What contributes to this framing of success by “modern social Darwinists” at the level of our university is, for me, a lack of perspective as to where we fit into the world we call home.
Oftentimes, our response to recognizing our exceptionalism is to find worth, value and pride in it while judging those who do not share that privilege. We do it to each other on a daily basis comparing this person’s job or that person’s academic research to our own drawing some sense of both pride and at times dejection from the constant comparisons.
But I do not want hubris become the trait of success in my life. I have been the beneficiary of luck, circumstance and privilege far too often for that to be a realistic reality. Being an exception gives us an obligation in some ways to serve, an ethic of responsibility to others to use our talents and abilities to contribute in positive and meaningful ways. The first thing I can think to start in combating these destructive attitudes this Thanksgiving is gratitude and compassion.
The Latin roots of the word compassion mean to endure something with another person. Looking upon someone with compassion means stripping bare their humanity so that you can find the common threads that tie us all together. Compassion requires action and for us as students such action can begin by taking the simple form of gratitude, a concerted effort to frame daily experience through a perspective of empathy.
If those papers, exams, thoughts of employment or the lack thereof have you down, take a moment to interact with the lived experience of others and begin to develop gratitude for what we have rather than what we do not. The first step may be as simple as greeting your housekeeping staff member tomorrow morning. Shout out to Tony in Wannamaker for making mornings a bit more pleasant.
An attitude of gratitude may not be easy, but I have begun to find it difficult without such a perspective to grasp what it means to be an exception and have this privilege of attending Duke.
However, gratitude is only the beginning. We each shoulder the burden of privilege by using our education to make the world a better place, to use this perspective of gratitude to begin giving back to our peers, to Duke and to the global community in unique and powerful ways. Gratitude and compassion allow each of us to live lives of service to others even when we have to work long hours in the library or in the office.
If there is any nugget of wisdom I have learned this year it is this: Above all, recognize that being exceptional, being a Duke student, is an existence worth being grateful for. All-nighters writing papers can be a blessing when the alternative is staying up all night because of extreme hunger. That privilege demands we act to be a force for reparative and restorative social justice in our society or else we risk becoming complicit in our broken system.
Losing elections for campus office, not landing the ideal internship or failing to ace that final can be blessings, but only if we take a moment to see things from a different perspective.
Jay Sullivan is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Monday.
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